


Can’t Live With ‘Em, But Shootin’ Em Never Solved Nothin’, Neither

by DesireeArmfeldt



Category: Firefly
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gift Fic, Mal's confusing (and confused) attitudes about women, POV Third Person Limited, Silly, Team, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 02:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11454420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesireeArmfeldt/pseuds/DesireeArmfeldt
Summary: For reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture, Mal is stranded in a mud pit without his clothes.  Fortunately, help is on the way!





	Can’t Live With ‘Em, But Shootin’ Em Never Solved Nothin’, Neither

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deannie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/gifts).



> You asked for light-hearted -- hopefully this fits the bill! :)

_Women. Why do I keep gettin’ myself mixed up with women?_

Mal sighs, shakes his head, and gazes up at the jagged slice of sky above his head. Not even that far above his head. Just too gorram far to jump, and the sides of the pit are mud, too slimy to get a grip on, and so pebbly that any piece you do grab hold of crumbles in your hand. Just ask his filthy, scraped-up hide.

_They're more trouble’n a boot full of scorpions._

When he saw Saffron’s dainty fingerprints all over the job, he should’ve just walked away. Cut his losses, taken _Serenity_ into the Black and not looked back. But he thought. . .he doesn’t even know what he thought. Sometimes it’s worth taking a certain amount of risk for a chance to even up the score, but him and Saffron, they’re way beyond _Fool me twice, shame on me_.

 _Should’ve just shot her in the first place and had done with it,_ he thinks, but even to himself, he doesn’t sound convincing. The sad truth is, he’s got some perverse scrap of fondness for the conniving wench. And it must be mutual, because she ain't never put a bullet in his head, either. Woman concocts an elaborate scheme to fool a man, gets him at her mercy, then makes him strip bare and leaves him in a mudhole, that shows she’s got some kind of feeling for him. Right?

He aims a disgusted kick at the pit wall, but that brought a small avalanche down on his head the last time he did it, which he remembers just in time to pull his foot back. Even manages not to pitch over into the muck while he's at it. Shiny.

This is how it always goes, when you get yourself tangled up with a woman. You start out aiming to lend a hand to someone in need, or conduct a simple business transaction, or hell, just share a drink and a chat, friendly-like. Next thing you know, you’re navigating blind through an asteroid field, all snarled up in a mess of mystifying, discomfortable _feelings,_ and the one thing that’s certain is that the end of the story ain’t gonna be pretty.

 _Why can’t they just stick to being people? How come they got to go turning into_ women _at the drop of a hat?_

Because, the thing is, most of the time, he gets along just fine with women. Mayors, cattle rustlers, deal-brokers, provisoners, engineers, soldiers, doctors, tavern-keeps, preachers: he’s never found that what a person keeps between their legs makes a mite of difference to how they do the job or how he conducts business with ‘em. It’s only when he gets to thinking about the _femaleness_ of ‘em—tries to treat ‘em like a man treats a woman—that he gets into trouble. Can’t tell what they want from him, or what he’s supposed to want or do or say, and whatever he tries is always the wrong thing.

That was how Saffron pulled the wool over his eyes that very first time they met. Another stowaway with a sob story, like Simon and River, he could’ve handled in some sensible fashion, clear-headed. But she wrong-footed him from the start with her big eyes and her pouty lips and her soft, delicate body and. . .and all the rest of it.

_Not thinking about that right now. Especially not thinking about all the rest of it. You’ve got a pit to climb out of, here. And the day ain’t getting no younger._

He looks around, taking stock of the resources at hand, just in case there’s something he missed the last twenty times he took stock.

Slippery, unstable pit walls with no handy ledges or tree roots to grab onto. Mud. More mud. Very small rocks.

He tries another jump, but his up-stretched fingers still come several feet shy of the lip of the hole. To add insult to injury, his left foot slips in the muck when he lands, dumping him on his rear, after all.

It’s at this particular juncture that a moon-pale face appears in the sky above him, and is immediately eclipsed by a cascade of dark hair.

“Oh, look, it’s a troll in a hole!” exclaims River cheerfully.

“River! Uh, hey there,” he says, trying to sound nonchalant. It’s true he don’t got much face left to save, here, but he _is_ her Captain. Not to mention, she’s an adolescent girl, and there ain’t enough mud on this planet to make up for his lack of trousers. He drops one hand to shield his privates from aerial observation. Nonchalantly.

“Shouldn’t you be under a bridge, though?” she asks, as though she’s pondering some deep mystery of the cosmos. “I’ve never heard of a troll that lived in a hole. On the other hand, moles live in holes. So, are you a mole, or a troll? A troll, or a mole?”

“River, this ain’t the moment for foolery!” he shouts up at her. The gal’s got an uncanny way of choosing the worst possible moment to go all crazycakes. Though in this particular case, it's better than even odds she’s just messing with his head.

“You’re awfully grumpy for a mole,” she says judiciously. “On the whole. . .I’d have to guess you’re a troll.” She gives a sharp little nod. “Troll in a hole. A whole troll, in a hole. A troll without a pole. Do trolls have souls?”

“Couldn’t rightly say,” he says through clenched teeth. If her big, warped brain is wandering for true, yelling at her won’t help, and if she’s just having fun with him. . .yelling won’t help. “But listen, darlin’. You know what this troll does have? A goal.”

She breaks into a delighted grin.

“A troll with a goal.” She nods exaggeratedly, like he’s a child who’s finally managed to lace up his own boots. Her long locks swing with the motion. “A troll. . .with a _goal.”_

“Yes, indeed. I’m a troll with a goal to get out of this hole so I can. . .take a stroll. But like you said, I ain’t got no pole. So, do you think you could, uh. . .” He flounders for a useful rhyme.

_Coal? Foal? Patrol? And why couldn’t her freakish powers include tele— tele— lifting people out of pits with her gorram mind?_

Her eyes fixed on him like he’s the most fascinating thing since the invention of the warp drive, River scootches herself forward so her shoulders are off the ledge. The movement sends a shower of pebbles skittering down the side of the pit.

“Whoa, whoa, careful now!” He raises his hands in alarm. “River, you put too much weight on that bank, it’s liable to start a mudslide.”

“Oh, is it a fun ride?” she asks, horrifyingly. But she’s just sporting with him, he’s sure. Almost sure. More or less.

“No. No, it ain’t, it is absolutely no fun at all, so how’s about you find some way to haul me up that don’t involve you falling down in here with me?”

“You find something, River?” Kaylee’s voice interrupts from up above. A second later, her face peers down at him alongside River’s.

“Kaylee!” he shouts.

“Hey there, Cap’n,” she says, with that easy, welcoming smile of hers. “You all right down there?”

She squints, looking him over, presumably trying to make sure all his parts are still attached. He’s covering himself with both hands, now, because yes, Kaylee’s a woman grown and the opposite of shy about sex and bodies, but she’s also like a little sister to him, and there are certain things a man just don’t show his little sister.

“I’m just fine,” he replies with the charmingest grin he can muster under the circumstances. “Be even better if somebody or other throws me down a rope sometime this afternoon.”

Any slim hope he had that Kaylee might take his side is squashed when she ignores this perfectly sensible suggestion, in favor of eyeballing him some _more_ , like he’s a steer she’s thinking about buying, then widening her eyes in a way that doesn’t look one little bit innocent, and saying, “Is _that_ the latest fashion ‘round these parts? My, folks here must be just as highfalutin’ as you said.”

Because, just to put the icing on the cake, Saffron’s set-up meant Mal had to dress up like a peacock so’s to pass amongst folks that normally look at him ‘n’ his like something stuck to the bottom of their shoes (again). And seeing as how he hadn’t wanted to get the rest of the crew mixed up in what was (yes, all right) likely to turn into a hog’s breakfast, he told 'em. . .well, he doesn’t rightly remember what he said, but obviously Kaylee does.

“Gotta say, though, you do wear it well,” she goes on. “That’s a look not many fellers could carry off, but you do have the, uh, what’s the word?”

“Physique,” says River, and Kaylee says, “Mmm, yeah,” and licks her lips, and the two of them share a grin and then both look back down at him, and then _River_ licks her lips, and _whoa Nelly_ , he needs to stop this train before he finds out just how far the two of them are willing to go to make him squirm.

“Listen, li’l Kaylee, I tell you what,” he wheedles. “You get me out of this here pit right quick, and next planet we touch down on, I’ll buy you some fruit, extra, just for you. How’s that sound?”

“Really?” He’s managed to surprise her, which is something, at least. Her eyes get all big for a second, then narrow. “And it won’t come out of the money for replacement parts or nothin’?”

“Cross my heart. I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket. Up to. . .a kilo of apples or the like, or a half-kilo of berries,” he specifies, because his pocket ain't got but so much in it.

“Two kilos cheap, three-quarters fancy,” she counters.

“Fine, it’s a deal.” He could probably haggle her down, but he’s got mud oozing in unmentionable places, and he really, really wants to get the Black under his wings. Besides, the look on Kaylee’s face when she savors a bite of fruit is worth putting down good money for all by itself. Not that she needs to know that.

“That’ll do me just fine,” she says, with a gleeful grin. “How about you, River? What’s your price?”

“Now, hold on a minute!” Mal protests. “This here’s a bargain ‘twixt you and me. River don’t enter into it.”

“’Course she do,” says Kaylee sweetly. “You think I could heave you up here on my ownsome? Strapping, big feller like yourself? First of all, ledge won’t take the weight, it’d crumble. I’ll have to rig up some kind of scaffold ‘n’ pulley system. And even so, it’s a job for two, at least.”

“I like birds,” says River.

“No, no, no, we are _not_ keeping no flying critters on board _Serenity,_ ” Mal yells. “That’s a recipe for fuss, muss ‘n’ mayhem. Any road, birds can’t abide changes in gravity. It, uh. . .disrupts their sense of balance. Like being boat-sick. And then they can’t fly.”

It’s a terrible, terrible idea to try to palm off scientific mumbo-jumbo on River, who knew more about the real thing when she was six years old than Mal ever will. But she doesn’t call him on it right away, and Kaylee, who knows engines inside out but ain’t got no more book learning than Mal, seems to swallow his line. Either that, or she doesn’t want a flying pest on board, herself.

“Cap’n’s right, bird’d be miserable on board ship. What about a different kind of pet? Something that don’t need a lot of room, that’d be easy to catch if it got loose. . .maybe a turtle?”

“Simon had a turtle when we were kids,” says River wistfully.

“Shiny, so you already know how to take care of one!” says Kaylee. “They’re easy, right?”

“I dissected it,” River says in that creepily matter-of-fact way of hers. “But only after it was dead. The cat tried to eat it, but it didn’t have the right tools for the job. No opposable thumbs. Simon was mad because we had to have a closed-casket funeral.”

Kaylee doesn’t seem to rightly know how to respond to this announcement. Mal’s fair flummoxed himself, but he can’t afford to pass up an opportunity to take back the reins of this negotiation.

“Uh, well, I ain’t rightly sure where to come by a turtle,” he says. “But if’n we can catch one or buy one, I’ll let you keep it on board.”

“And you’ll help me get it?”

“I will. Long as it don’t involve endangerment of life or limb or my ship. We got a deal?”

“Deal.” River nods solemnly, then spits in her hand and reaches it towards him, not that they’re close enough to touch.

“All right. We’ve got that settled, now will you two fine young ladies kindly rig up whatever contraption is necessary, and get me out of here afore I die of old age?”

“Ah, there you are, sir.” A more welcome sight than Zoë’s practical, sensible face at this moment, Mal cannot imagine. “Good to see you. I was starting to wonder if those directions were a wild goose chase after all.”

“Directions?” he can’t help asking, even though it’s a distraction from the task at hand, namely, getting his muddy ass out of this gorram pit.

“Got a wave from Saffron. Sent her _love,_ plus directions on where to find you. Oh, and she reckoned as how you might be needing these.” Zoë holds up a pair of trousers.

“Zoë! You are my favorite person! Toss ‘em on down here!”

“I don’t know,” she says, her poker face more mocking than any smirk. “Seems a waste to put ‘em on down there, they’d be ruined in a second. What do you think?”

“Give ‘em here!” Mal shouts, but, of course, it ain’t his vote she’s after.

“Them’s too valuable to just give away for nothin’,” says Kaylee. “I say hold out for what you can get.”

“Three wishes is traditional,” River chimes in.

Zoë smiles. “Come to think of it, Wash and I were just talking the other day about how nice it’d be to take a few days’ shore leave somewhere with a little class to it. Or at least running water.”

“Ooh, yeah! I bet Inara could recommend someplace real swanky!” sighs Kaylee. “With hot baths and pretty young things to oil your hands and feet and all. Nothing like a proper bath, ain’t that so, Cap’n?”

Mal covers his face with his hands—with _one_ hand, as he remembers barely in time that he’s still got a scrap of propriety to maintain. Although really, he doesn’t know whose sensibilities he’s trying to protect. Not the three she-devils giggling away up there, that’s for certain. They’ve got about enough delicacy among ‘em to choke a flea.

And he’s going to be trapped in close quarters with them until they next make planetfall.

And they’ll tell Inara.

He groans and waits for them to finish laughing and throw down a rope.


End file.
